Where growth is in the air

In Palm Beach Gardens, about 120 miles south of today's launch site for the space shuttle Atlantis, Palm Beach County leaders say they are firing up economic development engines to attract more aerospace and aviation business.

The area is rebounding from the 2001 exodus of 1,300 Pratt & Whitney engineers and hundreds of other high-tech jobs to Connecticut, said local business leaders attending a small trade conference Wednesday in northern Palm Beach County.

Industry experts said the county's budding high-tech corridor plus start-up aviation businesses like DayJet in Boca Raton and new flight training centers at area high schools and colleges are good indications the county is ready when it comes to wooing space exploration businesses.

Local aviation-related industries have for "so long flown so low below the radar screen," said Kelly Smallridge, president and chief executive officer of the Palm Beach County Business Development Board, which hosted Wednesday's gathering.

What's going on now, she said, is local officials "have quickly embraced this industry and are responding to their needs."

Thirteen shuttle flights from now, NASA will end the shuttle program in 2010. What follows is still unclear, but more commercial space technology is to fill the void as NASA, with its $17 billion a year budget, moves toward more lunar explorations with the goal of reaching Mars in 2030.

Steve Kohler, president of Space Florida, the quasi-government agency the Legislature established for overseeing commercial space exploits, told area leaders Wednesday that there's no reason why Palm Beach County businesses can't be a major part of both commercial space ventures and NASA's future. This area, he said, "is in a great position to capture more of this market."

The burgeoning high-tech sector, including Scripps Florida, the potential arrival of German bioscience researcher Max Planck Society and other high-tech research labs will help attract aeronautics engineers, Kohler said.

Roughly 3,600 people are employed in Palm Beach County in aviation and aeronautics-related jobs, Smallridge said.

Coastal Optical Systems. Founded in the county in 1991, the Jupiter firm sports 80 employees and gets $3.2 million a year in sales of its precision lenses and cameras used on satellites and for other aeronautics technologies.

DayJet. Launched Oct. 3 as the world's first per-seat, on-demand jet service after five years' research and $100 million in investment equity, the Boca Raton firm has ambitious expansion plans and is moving toward purchasing a large aircraft fleet. It's serving 25 cities with 20 aircraft and 230 employees, said Traver Gruen-Kennedy, DayJet's vice president of strategic operations.

Pratt & Whitney. Though a major local employer since the 1960s, the rocket designer's area work force plummeted from 8,300 in 1989 to 3,500 local employees, a drop stemming from a move of much of its operations to New England. It remains a leader in the local industry, drawing numerous small start-up firms as its suppliers.

Florida Atlantic University and Palm Beach Community College. FAU's engineering and computer science department is churning out roughly 2,500 students a year at its Boca Raton campus. School officials say they've modernized their program ahead of most schools in the field.

Karl Stevens of the FAU engineering department said most other colleges have programs that haven't changed since the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957. FAU's program, including a Center for Innovation Leadership, includes a broad curriculum involving training that incorporates business, legal, ethics, management, communications and aviation technical skills.

Pat Ritchie of the community college said the school's partnership with Embry-Riddle, a large aviation training school, provides flight education but also focuses on the operations and maintenance side of the aviation business where most of the jobs are to be had.

Boynton Beach Community High School. Paul Hershorin leads a program for 20 to 30 students who earn credit and learn flight training and other aircraft and engineering skills. School starts at 7:30 a.m., but students line up most days before 7 a.m., he said, to take turns on nine flight simulators to learn the basics of flying 30 different aircraft including the Cessna 172. One goal: Graduating students get the opportunity to fly in Hershorin's own small home-built aircraft.

Mark Hollis can be reached at mhollis@sun-sentinel.com or 561-228-5512